My mother suffered from depression and anxiety for years and nothing seemed to work. Back in 2000 they tried ECT with her. It's much more mild today than in the past when they put a piece of leather in your mouth to keep your teeth from shattering.

It worked early on, but after a couple of years the benefits wore off and she required more and more treatments. Coupled with her heart issues we had to discontinue.

Mixed feelings on this. It was a quick, temporary fix for my mom. She laughed for the 1st time in several years the day after the 1st treatment, but in the end it seemed pretty fleeting.

thanks for the feedback...yeah...I've been through all...literally all the possible medications for my condition...to no avail...even had the country's leading expert as a doc....no dice....so all that's left is ECT and TMS....scraping the bottle of the barrel for sure...

oaktownguy saidthanks for the feedback...yeah...I've been through all...literally all the possible medications for my condition...to no avail...even had the country's leading expert as a doc....no dice....so all that's left is ECT and TMS....scraping the bottle of the barrel for sure...

My mom was in poor health, but the ECT was pretty mild, there were no negative repercussions. They put you out for it so you don't remember a thing. I was just giving my personal experience with it.. just do your due diligence and read up as much as you can.

oaktownguy saidthanks for the feedback...yeah...I've been through all...literally all the possible medications for my condition...to no avail...even had the country's leading expert as a doc....no dice....so all that's left is ECT and TMS....scraping the bottle of the barrel for sure...

My mom was in poor health, but the ECT was pretty mild, there were no negative repercussions. They put you out for it so you don't remember a thing. I was just giving my personal experience with it.. just do your due diligence and read up as much as you can.

It's my understanding that short term memory loss is common....did your mom lose any memories?

We have a new clinic in Winnipeg that performs the Transtimulation Therapy. The research on the treatment itself is varied. Some studies show its effectiveness while others do not. In Canada, ECT is still used as a last line of treatment for treatment resistant Major Depressive Disorder or Bipolar Affective Disorder. I have even seen it used for Schizoaffective disorder. I find it to be fairly effective- in reality, the side effects from ECT are no worse (comparatively) than a lot of the antidepressants being used on the market. The major side effect with ECT is retrograde memory loss, but in many clients it decreses over time. I think it is a very effective treatment, but like all other treatments, it needs to be carefully considered with the treatment team when most other options have failed.